Wongamine Gold Mine, Toodyay Shire, Western Australia, Australia

Latitude & Longitude (WGS84):	31° 29' 22'' South , 116° 35' 14'' East
Latitude & Longitude (decimal):	-31.48961,116.58733
Köppen climate type:	Csa : Hot-summer Mediterranean climate

A question often asked is : Where can I go on a day trip near to Perth to search for gold?" The answer is unfortunately no-where. North Dandalup was a fraud, although it continues to be reported on websites as a gold location. The Wagin find amounted to very little. Fine gold, and minute nuggets were
found near Donnybrook historically, but is now private property. The three sites between Toodyay and Bolgart including this one, are now lost to farming, and only minor gold was found. That is not to say Western Australia is not rich in gold, you just need to travel to more remote locations.

Wongamine is a location some 15 kilometres east north-east of Toodyay, said to be adjacent to Bejoording Road in one source, and half a mile to the east in another. The site is of interest for gold and graphite in about equal measure.

On the graphite front, it is found in several bands up to 6 metres wide, striking north-south, as siliceous gossan or Fe duricrust, containing small pockets or lenses of almost pure fine graphite, or as graphite flakes in white kaolin schists.

Government geologist Feldtmann, investigating the site for gold states there were 24 prospecting leases pegged, with a main group of 14. This included the reward lease, Reward 8PP. The ridges he states contains laterized iron rock, the lower slopes sand and ironstone gravel, with alluvium near the creek beds. He notes bands of iron, graphitic rock and kaolin. The silicified kaolin contains threadlike veinlets and isolated flakes of graphite. Numerous pegmatite dykes and veins intrude the area.

Mining activity consisted of trenches and potholes, with one shaft to 40 feet. This shaft showed an upper yellowish clayey material said to contain gold, purplish-grey graphitic rock lower down, then under this a small glassy quartz vein, and finally decomposed yellowish rock. The Reward lease consisted of a few potholes, filled in at the time of the investigation.

Gold was thought to be found in quartz veins and stringers in ironstone and possibly graphitic rock. Six samples were taken to the government laboratories and only one showed a trace of gold. A further eighteen were sampled, only eight showed gold, three payable, two of which were from the potholes on the Reward lease.

The site was active in the early 1930's, prospectors at loggerheads with the local farmers, who wanted the land for farming, and the gold for themselves. Albert and Susannah King had applied for the Reward lease, but were taken to court by the farmer the land was on, Albert Duke, who had pegged over the lease for himself. There had been rumours of gold in the area from at least 1896, with C. Glass Senior discovering a small nugget in clay when cleaning out a well contaminated by a dead possum. Arguments persisted until 1937, when the Mines Department ordered all the holes to be filled in at the locations.

Map- location uncertain. The Wongamine Nature Reserve has been used to give an idea of the general area. Wheat farming, farmlets, and the above mentioned hole infilling, means there is likely little evidence remaining of mining.

Mineral List

4 valid minerals.

Rock Types Recorded

Regional Geology

This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.

Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org

Cenozoic 0 - 66 Ma ID: 715881

ferruginous duricrust 38498 Age: Cenozoic (0 - 66 Ma) Description: Ferruginous duricrust, laterite; pisolitic, nodular, vuggy; may include massive to pisolitic ferruginous subsoil, mottled clays, magnesite, reworked products of ferruginous and siliceous duricrusts, calcrete, gossan; residual ferruginous saprolite Comments: regolith; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Regolith Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]

Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License

References